Times of Better Bharat

The borrowing calendar The Reserve Bank of India, in consultation with the Government of India, has released the indicative calendar for issuance of Government of India dated securities, including Sovereign Green Bonds, for October 2026 to March 2027. In a separate notice it set out the Treasury bill calendar for the quarter ending December 2026, and an auction on 30 September 2026 of ₹9,000 crore of 91-day bills, ₹8,000 crore of 182-day bills and ₹7,000 crore of 364-day bills — ₹24,000 crore in all.

The Centre's Ways and Means Advances limit for October 2026 to March 2027, the second half of financial year 2026-27, is ₹50,000 crore. The RBI may trigger fresh floatation of market loans once the Centre has used 75 per cent of that limit.

State governments have offered stock aggregating ₹22,200 crore in face value by auction. In the auction of 6.94% GS 2036, the notified amount was ₹34,000 crore; ₹34,000 crore was accepted at a cut-off price of 98.58, an implicit yield of 7.1450%, with nil devolvement on primary dealers.

The liquidity side On Monday, 28 September 2026, the RBI will conduct a Variable Rate Reverse Repo auction of ₹2,00,000 crore, a one-day tenor between 09:30 and 10:00, with reversal on 29 September. The Bank said the decision followed a review of "current and evolving liquidity conditions". Money supply data for the fortnight ended 15 September 2026 were released in the same week.

The weekly statistical supplement puts the RBI's loans and advances to state governments at ₹19,427 crore on 18 September 2026, against ₹14,958 crore a week earlier and ₹32,445 crore a year earlier; the data are provisional.

The stock behind the flows The IMF's general government gross debt measure — Centre and states combined, on the definition used for debt-sustainability analysis — stands at 83.4% of GDP for 2026, a figure the source marks contested, and down from a peak near 89% in 2020. The Union Budget's central-government figure is about 55.6% for FY2026-27; the two cover different entities and are not contradictory. External debt stock was US$716.5 billion in 2024. Consumer price inflation was 2.4% in 2025 and GDP growth 7.6%.

Corruption perceptions: up five places Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 2025, released on 10 February 2026, places India 91st of 182 countries and territories with a score of 39, up from 96th and a score of 38 in 2024. That remains below the global average score of 42. India is ranked ahead of Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and behind China and Bhutan. The source notes that some trackers still describe the index as covering 180 countries, while the 2025 edition covered 182.

Press freedom: down six places Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index 2026, released on 30 April 2026, places India 157th of 180 countries with a score of 31.96, down six places from 151st in 2025 and inside the organisation's "very serious" band. RSF cites violence against journalists, concentrated ownership, and the use of defamation and national-security law. The Indian government has publicly disputed RSF's methodology and sample size.

Democracy and governance scores The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index recorded India at 41st of 167 — classed a "flawed democracy" and tied with Poland — up five places on 2022, in the 2023 edition that is the latest in this data. India's score peaked at 7.92 in 2014, when it was 27th, and fell to 6.61 in 2020, when it was 53rd.

The World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators for 2024 place India at −0.08 for voice and accountability, −0.04 for rule of law, −0.30 for control of corruption, 0.40 for government effectiveness, −0.10 for regulatory quality and −0.79 for political stability and absence of violence, each on a scale from −2.5 to +2.5.

V-Dem's 2025 data put electoral democracy at 0.38 and liberal democracy at 0.26 on a 0 to 1 scale, freedom of expression at 0.46 and judicial checks on government at 0.67. Political corruption is scored at 0.68, public sector corruption at 0.69 and executive corruption at 0.69, on indices where higher is worse. Women's political participation is scored at 0.71; the Inter-Parliamentary Union records women holding 13.8% of Lok Sabha seats.

Reading the vintages Each series comes from a different publisher on its own cycle — the Democracy Index figure dates from the 2023 edition, the governance indicators from 2024, the corruption index from the edition released in February 2026 and the press-freedom index from April 2026. The government's dispute with RSF concerns method and sample size rather than the measurement itself, and the next editions will show whether the movements hold.

Human development: 130th of 193 UNDP's Human Development Report 2025, released on 6 May 2025 on 2023 data, gives India an HDI of 0.685 and a rank of 130th of 193, up from 133rd and 0.676 the previous year — still inside the "medium human development" band and just below the 0.700 threshold for "high". Inequality cuts the score by 30.7%, the steepest discount among India's neighbours in the report. China is placed 78th.

Hunger: 102nd of 123 The Global Hunger Index 2025, released in October 2025, places India 102nd of 123 with a score of 25.8 — a methodology the Indian government has formally contested — in the "serious" band, improved from 105th of 127 and a score of 27.3 in 2024. Child wasting stands at 18.7%, among the highest rates in the report; stunting is 32.9% and undernourishment 12.0%.

Life evaluation: 116th of 147 The World Happiness Report 2026, released on 20 March 2026, places India 116th of 147 with a score of 4.54, up from 118th in 2025 and 126th in 2024. The measure is self-reported life evaluation on a 0 to 10 ladder through the Gallup World Poll. Nepal, at 99, and Pakistan, at 104, rank higher; Bangladesh at 127 and Sri Lanka at 134 rank lower. Finland is first for the ninth year.

The underlying series World Bank data put life expectancy at birth at 72.2 years in 2024. The Our World in Data series on under-five mortality, drawn from the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation and last updated with 2019 data, records 3.6% of children dying before the age of five.

What would move the first number The distance from India's HDI of 0.685 to the 0.700 "high" threshold is 0.015 of a point, and the inequality adjustment of 30.7% is the steepest among its neighbours in the current edition. Whether the threshold is crossed will be visible in the next Human Development Report.

Innovation: 38th of 139 WIPO's Global Innovation Index 2025 places India 38th of 139 economies, up one place on 2024 and ten places since 2020. India leads Central and Southern Asia, is the top-performing lower-middle-income economy, and has over-performed relative to its income level for fifteen consecutive years, according to the report. It ranks 52nd on innovation inputs and 32nd on outputs, and first in the world for ICT services.

Within the last 48 hours, a government release quoted Pralhad Joshi as saying that a wave of innovation in the country would help realise the Viksit Bharat vision. A separate release recorded Jitendra Singh telling a CSIR foundation-day event that technological sovereignty is critical to national sovereignty.

Logistics: 38th of 139 The World Bank's Logistics Performance Index places India 38th of 139, up six places from 44th in 2018 and sixteen from 54th in 2014. India is 22nd on international shipments, 47th on infrastructure and 48th on logistics competence, and targets a top-25 place by 2030. After a later methodology change the index no longer ranks countries on a single overall score, so the 2023 figure may not be directly comparable with earlier editions.

Access: 70%, 79.4 and 89% Digital and financial reach is the base the two indices build on. The World Bank and ITU record 70% of the population using the internet in 2025 and 79.4 mobile subscriptions per 100 people in 2024. The World Bank's Global Findex puts account ownership at 89% of adults aged 15 and above in 2024.

The three access figures are published separately from the innovation and logistics indices, and move on their own cycle. The next editions of all three will show whether the direction holds.

The news The National Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognisance of reports of the alleged suicide of a woman who was a victim of gang-rape in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, according to a release published within the last 48 hours.

Crime against women and children The National Crime Records Bureau's data for 2022 record 66.4 cases of crime against women per lakh women — a figure the source marks contested — across 4,45,256 cases, or about 51 FIRs an hour. Cruelty by a husband or his relatives accounts for 31.4% of the total, kidnapping and abduction 19.2%, assault with intent to outrage modesty 18.7% and rape 7.1%. Delhi's rate was 144.4, more than double the national figure.

For 2023, the bureau records 39.9 cases of crime against children per lakh children — also marked contested — across 1,77,335 cases, up 9.2% on 2022. Kidnapping and abduction account for 45% and POCSO offences for 38.2%; together over four fifths of the total.

The international comparison United Nations data, published through Our World in Data, put India's homicide rate at 2.8 per 100,000 people in 2022.

The road toll The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways records 1,83,434 road accident deaths a year — the highest absolute number of any country, roughly 11% of the global total, ahead of China and the United States. Deaths rose 25.5% from 1,46,133 in 2015 while reported crashes rose only 2.4%, a comparison the ministry's own series presents as crashes becoming markedly deadlier. Its figures for 2023 record 4,80,583 accidents and 4,62,825 persons injured.

What the series show The two crime series are compiled by the NCRB and the road series by the transport ministry, and each is published with a lag. The ministry's pairing of the two road figures — deaths up 25.5%, crashes up 2.4% — points to outcomes per crash rather than to exposure, and any change would appear first in the next edition of the same annual report.

The index Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy's Environmental Performance Index 2026 ranks India 176th of 177 countries with a score of 22.46, a placement the source marks contested — second from last, ahead only of Laos. Yale cites air quality, coal dependence and weak biodiversity protection. India's ten-year change in score is nonetheless positive, at +7.47, and the same series recorded India at 141st in 2016. The Environment Ministry rejected the 2022 edition of the index outright as methodologically unsound.

Air quality IQAir's eighth World Air Quality Report, covering 2025, places India 6th of 143 countries by population-weighted PM2.5 at 48.9 micrograms per cubic metre — close to ten times the WHO guideline of 5 — and describes that as an improvement on 2024, when India was 5th at 50.6. Delhi remains the world's most polluted capital at 82.2 micrograms per cubic metre, itself a three-year low in the same series.

Power generation Renewable sources supplied 24.1% of electricity generation in 2025, according to Ember and the Energy Institute, published through Our World in Data. Solar generation was 196 terawatt-hours in the same year, on the Energy Institute's figures.

The coal question Within the last 48 hours the government opened media registration for India Mining Week 2026, a PIB release said. Yale's citation of coal dependence sits alongside the index's own positive ten-year score change and the Environment Ministry's rejection of its method. Both the air-quality and generation figures will be updated in the next editions of the same reports.